BEFORE: Faizon Love carries over from "Wonderland", and this is a film that I recorded months ago, but I kept it down at the bottom of the list, because I was waiting for some channel to run the film I'm going to watch tomorrow. That took some time, longer than expected. But eventually it did air, so I'm moving forward with my plan to get this one AND that one off the watchlist before the end of the year.
THE PLOT: A musical set in prohibition-era American South, where Rooster, a speakeasy performer and club manager, must contend with gangsters while his partner, piano player Percival, must choose between his love and his obligations to his father.
AFTER: This sort of fits into that fascination we seem to have as a country with the Jazz Age, the birth of the club scene and a particular style of music, and the gangster lifestyle that went along with the combination of those things and Prohibition. Just as American culture and nightlife were developing, alcohol happened to be illegal, so naturally crime flourished in the form of bootlegging and other illicit night-time activities.
But I found this film very hard to follow - and very hard to finish, since I kept falling asleep, rewinding back to the last thing I remembered, and falling asleep again. How did someone make singing, dancing and running hooch so flipping boring? I had to give up on the film after about an hour, and then get some real sleep. After work on Friday I had to finish the final hour of the film, but all told, that took way too much time. If only there had been anything interesting in the plot, maybe I could have stayed awake.
I think the main problem here is that even some of the actors don't seem like they care - and if they don't seem invested in what's going on, then neither do I. Bear in mind that some of these actors fell backwards into movies through music, so they may not have had formal training in acting, and sometimes that does make a difference. Terrence Howard, I don't know what his deal is, but he always gives off that air like he doesn't care what's happening. Acting is about showing emotions, not just being the coolest, most emotionally detached person in the room at any given time.
But there are also parts of the story that don't make any sense. There's a woman who impersonates a famous singer, just to get into the club - and then when she gets up on stage, she realizes that she can't perform due to stage fright. Really? If she can't sing, then what was her big plan, what was the endgame to her little scam? It just doesn't track. In another instance, a gangster informs the new owner of the club that the previous owner's debt is now his problem. Umm, no, pretty much everyone agrees that when someone dies, their debts are wiped clean. Not even a mobster would go after someone else to collect a debt, or am I way off base here?
Plus, it just didn't work for me to have characters performing in a nightclub in the 1930's, singing what are essentially hip-hop songs. You can't re-work the historical timeline to put a modern piece of music in a historical setting. This didn't work in "Moulin Rouge", and it didn't work here.
On top of all that, I didn't even understand the bits with the talking rooster on the flask. I literally have no idea what that was all about. Was Rooster insane, hallucinating, or what? Same goes for the little animated characters on the sheet music - what did that even bring to the table, or was it just a time-killer? I'm just not following so much of this randomness. And on top of THAT, it doesn't make any sense for someone to collect cuckoo clocks, to have a whole wall of them. That's just not a thing - I guarantee that for anyone who owns one of those items, one is plenty, possibly too many.
There are a couple of nice camera tricks in this film, but a movie needs to be about more than just a couple pieces of interesting cinematography and a hokey ending.
Also starring André Benjamin, Antwan "Big Boi" Patton, Paula Patton (last seen in "The Do-Over"), Terrence Howard (last seen in "St. Vincent"), Malinda Williams, Cicely Tyson (last seen in "Alex Cross"), Ving Rhames (last seen in "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2"), Macy Gray (last seen in "Around the World in 80 Days"), Jackie Long, Ben Vereen, Bill Nunn (last seen in "Regarding Henry"), Paula Jai Parker (last seen in "Hustle & Flow"), Bobb'e J. Thompson, Patti Labelle, Karen Dyer (last seen in "Gangster Squad"), Oscar Dillon, Esau McGraw, Bruce Bruce, with the voice of Fonzworth Bentley.
RATING: 3 out of 10 tommy guns
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